BSNL: Billing hassles galore
Indian Telecom, Telecom News March 26th, 2006
I chanced on this story on IBN (mercifully without it’s famous spelling mistakes!) ( For more on this read here.)
They have highlighted a persons problem who was forced to cough up Rs 7.25 lakhs for local calls made in 2 months! The person in question tried every avenue and thence he took his problem to the media. The problem was solved immediately. What otherwise took 11 years. Because of pro active media. Thats why we need media to act as a watch dog. I won’t say that media ought to butt in to solve such cases like billing complaints, but surely can funnel people’s voices to make sure that the accountabilty sets in.
Anyway, I am posting across two screenshots of BSNL’s legendary perfidy. The gentleman in question is suffering from dire medical problems and I know him personally. Being wrecked by old age, he is not very mobile and is forced to stay on bed for extended spells.
He got an inflated bill (screen shot 1). He had to personally call the high up officials and explain it to them that the billing hassle be rectified. Despite so called assurances, there was no answer forthcoming. The gent in question told the high ups that he isn’t mobile because of his pressing and urgent medical problems; that he is incapacitated. Yet, there was no show of mercy from these officials.
After a threat of legal action and perhaps much boo boos later, the corrected bill was issued (roughly after 3 months). You can see the screenshot here. The difference is stark! The original bill amount was Rs 3000/- plus. This was reduced to Rs 600/- plus only!
Now, what do we make out of them. Despite claiming the fact that BSNL has an established Customer service, not everyone gets any redressal to the same effect. I have heard horror stories about people interacting with their staff; you would honestly want to give up in disgust. It is the same company that made a neat profit of Rs 10,000 crore. Yes, that was in the last fiscal. Yet, with such a profitable enterprise and it’s engaging in inflating bills.
(I have had to obscure the personal details in the screenshots to protect the identity of the person in question).
We need this to be highlighted in the media and perhaps force them to act.
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Tags: BSNL, Other Frustrated Customers
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About
Well, a friend of mine got a 13,000 bill for a month of broadband last month! And that too when his chargeable download was just 270 MB out of an alloted 1 GB free. It seems that transfers during the free night download periods was also counted. An application was sent and subsequently the bill was reduced to just 1k including other calls.
I have myself received bills of 2000 and more every month despite making barely 50 calls for the entire period from that phone. Obviously, BSNL employees do not mind putting their customers’ phones to good use. There were several occasions when I’d pick my phone up and hear a conversation going on at the other end. Bloody BSNL
after much trouble i managed to get a bsnl broadband home plan 250 connection.but who would imagine that my troubles had just stared.after much persuasive efforts with the most ignorant techies, i had finally managed to set up a connection whose user ID and password would reach only 3 weeks late.afer a month of interupted usage i recieved a letter only to formally inform me of my ID & password and not the usesage/plan details.then months went by as there were no bills for the internet were coming in.
So as delegent customers i went to complian only to learn that they was no master record file of our broadband customer ID.simply to say,there were surprised to learn that i had a broadband(bb) which they forgot to charge for three months down the line.
then after much efforts, i recieve my 1st bill after 6 months of bb usage of Rs.38,450/-(yes thirty eight thousand only)two months have passed now still looking for answers.still coughing up the amout in installments.